


Happy rA9mas! Have a Pigeon!

by beeayy, TesIsAMess



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, Gen, Gift Giving, Holidays, Pigeons, Post-Pacifist Best Ending (Detroit: Become Human), making new friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:19:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28289070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beeayy/pseuds/beeayy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TesIsAMess/pseuds/TesIsAMess
Summary: Rupert spends time with old friends and makes some new ones.for the #NEraWinter2020 Prompt for Dec 24: Gifts
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6
Collections: New ERA Discord: Festival of Prompts





	Happy rA9mas! Have a Pigeon!

Rupert shut the door of his apartment and closed his eyes. It was poinsettia season at Urban Farms, and some days the enormous greenhouses filled to the brim with soft leaves in shades of red and white and speckled pink seemed to fill his casing with the lightness and joy of being free. Today, he felt tired. Rent was due. Working the loading dock for the overtime shift had almost been too much for his circuits. And ever since he sort of accidentally came out as an android the humans didn’t get too close. Not that he’d wish android liberation didn’t happen and…well, not that he really made friends with humans anyway, or androids for that matter.

Something tapped at the window. He went over and opened it to find three pigeons lined up. One of them, a speckled one, squeaked at him and flapped her wings.

“Hello,” he said, grinning. “Don’t tell me you were waiting around just for me?”

The sqeckled pigeon hopped inside.

“Oh—no, no no,” Rupert hurried after the pigeon and caught it. “We’re not doing that anymore, remember?”

He returned her to the windowsill, only to have the two other pigeons hop down into the apartment, followed by a third that swooped in and tried to land on Rupert’s hat. He groaned, then tried to gather them up. One dashed under the table while another took up its usual spot on the back of a chair, and a couple nestled into the bathroom sink. None of them particularly resisted capture once he caught them, they just cooed. That was somehow worse.

“Listen,” he said, as he tried to gather them up, “It’s not that I don’t want you. But the landlord said I can’t let you stay here anymore, and…”

He turned back to the window, his arms full of pigeons, to see the speckled one sitting all fluffed up and forlorn in the center of the floor. She gave a mournful squeak. More were hopping in and getting settled all around the apartment, looking up at him.

“…And I don’t get paid until the end of the week. Which means no birdseed.”

He sighed and gave up trying to corral them, just sat down on the floor and let his armfuls of pigeons go. They didn’t go very far, a couple perching on his shoulders while others just cuddled up close. “Just this once,” he told them. “I’m going to have to spend all of Christmas Day just cleaning up after you.” He laughed because he couldn’t even make that sound stern. He stroked the speckled pigeon under the chin, causing it to scoot toward him and peck gently at his hand. He held out his empty palms for her inspection. “See? I got nothing. I guess they don’t want their staff skipping out on Christmas Eve huh?” 

Everyone had gotten some extra produce from Urban Farms as part of their payment for this month, which must have been nice for the human workers who could enjoy the boxes of potatoes and carrots and winter greens. Rupert chose a box of ornamental dried gourds to be polite since he didn’t eat, only realizing when he got home that pigeons could eat winter greens. Pigeons could not eat dried gourds.

The pigeon cooed sadly but hopped into his lap anyway, and he petted her feathers as he looked around at his friends. All shades of gray, some mottled white or brown, their green-purple throats flashing in the evening sun like holiday lights. “I wish I could give you a present half as nice as this,” he said. 

Someone knocked on the door. Rupert instantly stiffened. Had the landlord seen the pigeons flocking in? He grabbed a couple with the idea to hide them in the closet and under the couch, but there were dozens now. He winced, but the landlord didn’t like it when he didn’t answer. He crept to the door and opened it just a crack.

A blond android with a broken faceplate stood outside, grinning at him. It was so shocking he let the door fall open as he stepped back. The android was wearing a string of lights wrapped around his neck and chest. A little girl android stood with him, wearing a sweater covered in triangles and stars. Another android with a pixie cut and her own string of lights around her neck stood nearby.

“Happy rA9mas!” the trio of androids said.

“Uh,” Rupert said.

“Whoa!” The little girl said, staring in awe at all the pigeons. “Cool!”

She dashed inside, Rupert only barely managing to dodge out of the way. 

“That was Alice!” the grinning android said. “This is Kara,” he pointed to the other android. “And this is Ralph!” He pointed at himself. Rupert noticed he was carrying a bright red box, which he squeezed against his chest. “Ralph saw you feed the pigeons once. Ralph thought, ‘that android sure likes pigeons!’”

He waited, looking from Rupert to the android he called Kara. She gave a hesitant smile. “Can we come in?”

Rupert, figuring he couldn’t shut the door on them now that their child was running around in his apartment, agreed. They stepped into the main room of the apartment, where Alice already had three pigeons on her shoulders and was giggling uncontrollably.

“Sorry,” he blurted, as they looked around. “I’m not supposed to let them inside. It’s just…”

“It’s cold outside,” Kara said with a soft smile.

“Yes, very cold,” Ralph said. “You’re very nice. The pigeons love you. Ralph has an eye for these things.”

Rupert blushed. “Well…”

“They will love you even more, now!” He held out the red box.

Rupert frowned, but took the box. “What is this for…?”

“Just a little something from Jericho,” Kara said. “Ralph mentioned you liked birds, so…”

Rupert unwrapped the box, and found a bag of birdseed inside.

“Uh,” Kara laughed nervously. “I guess we didn’t realize how _many_ birds you like.”

Rupert felt like his thirium pump was going to burst out of his chest. “This is—for me?”

“It’s a gift!” Ralph assured him, and then added, as if reading his mind, “That’s something you don’t have to pay for.”

Rupert didn’t know what to say. No one had ever given him anything. Not without working for it. He immediately sat down and opened the box. The pigeons crowded around him, nuzzling and poking. Soon he had seed spread out for everyone, with handfuls for his three guests as well. He realized he was giggling as uncontrollably as Alice.

“Ralph likes pigeons too,” Ralph said as he fed one perched on top of his head. “Luther has a dove he brought with him to help with the presents.” He took Rupert’s hand—another first. “Do you want to see the dove?”

“Uh…” Rupert managed a shrug, and Ralph tugged him over to the window, where he pointed down to a van on the curb decked in lights. A TR400 hung out of the driver’s side window, while another couple of androids—Rupert recognized them from the news…was that really Markus and North?—stood at the van’s open door. They were dressed in their own festive décor: Markus in a light-up halo and North wearing an insanely-patterned sweater. They were entertaining a very large white polar bear that was sticking its head out of the van’s back doors. Well, North was entertaining the bear, giving it a huge bear hug while the bear licked her ear. Markus watched and laughed.

“Did you know, doves are just white pigeons?” Ralph said, proudly, as he gazed down at the bear. “That is a fun fact!” 

“Just go with it,” Alice whispered at Rupert’s side.

Rupert was at once disturbed and very impressed.

“We better be going,” Kara said, brushing the last of the seed off her hands. “Thanks for letting us stop by.”

Ralph’s grip tightened on Rupert’s hand as Alice whined. “Do we have to?” they said simultaneously. 

“Well, unless Rupert wants to come with us,” Kara said with a wink at Rupert.

Rupert felt his casing fill with soft, fluttery poinsettias. 

“But...I don’t have anything to give,” he managed, then-- “Wait! I’ll be right back!” 

He dashed into the other room. Moments later he returned with the box of gourds from Urban Farms. “Uh--do you think these would be good gifts?”

The androids stared at the gourds, all striped and speckled and smooth, in amazement.

“Yes!” Ralph said immediately. “Yes—those are good gifts, Rupert!”

“We can make them into pigeons!!” Alice squeaked. “They can be part of the rA9mas holiday spirit! I have googly eyes and glue in the van!”

“Why do you have googly eyes and glue?” Kara asked.

“MOM, what kind of self-respecting kid would I be if I didn’t have googly eyes _at all times_? You said rA9mas is whatever we make of it!”

“You have to come with us now!” Ralph demanded. “Ralph will even help clean up tomorrow! Ralph has a house and he keeps it clean, very clean, the landlord won’t know the difference and the pigeons can be warm and safe for the holiday.”

Rupert glanced at his pigeons, all focused on the birdseed. They’d be around to snuggle with when he got home. “I…I guess,” he managed. “I mean—I _have_ to meet this dove of yours…”

Alice gave him a star to wear, and Ralph shared one of this strings of lights. Rupert gave everyone a pigeon feather (Ralph couldn't stop admiring his all evening). When he got back after delivering presents to several Jerry androids, a couple of security guards at a bank, and a house full of androids that all had Connor’s face, Rupert returned to the apartment to find the pigeons all huddled together next to the empty box of birdseed. He shut the window and settled in with them to go into standby, setting the second bag of birdseed Ralph managed to conjure up for him on the floor for tomorrow.

Maybe humanoid friends weren’t so bad to have, after all. 

  
  


[Happy rA9mas!](https://twitter.com/Tes_273/status/1342135743112769538) by [Tes_273](https://twitter.com/Tes_273)

If you love Rupert's epic sweater as much as I do, go give some love on her Twitter!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Tes for this joyous collaboration! <3 <3 <3


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